Jaki Irvine: SHWO EM TEH WAY OT GO HMOE

About

As part of Jaki Irvine's project at DLWP, she will present SHWO EM TEH WAY OT GO HMOE, a new live work that brings together a live graphic score and musical improvisation. Collaborating with musicians from Ireland and the UK, Irvine is leading a series of sessions where the performers respond both to the score and to each other's playing, creating a dynamic and unpredictable soundscape.

Exploring how memories and songs shape identity and how their loss or distortion can unsettle a sense of self, the work draws on both 'real' and digitally generated footage. The song Show Me the Way to Go Home (1925), often remembered as a sea shanty from the film Jaws (1975), acts as a thread through the piece, evoking disorientation, longing and resilience. Reinterpreted through sampling, distortion and reconstruction, the song becomes a way of holding on, of whistling in the dark.

Alongside experiments with digital animation, Irvine will recreate filmic moments of doubt, mirroring the fragile nature of memory and identity. Layered with urban soundscapes and radio broadcasts, the performance creates a space where personal and collective histories intertwine, reflecting the interconnected and shifting nature of memory, identity and belonging.

In keeping with the spirit of improvisation and exploration, audience members are invited to come along and spend as much time as they would like, while the work gradually evolves across two hours through experimentation and improvisation.

Image: Jaki Irvine, SHWO EM THE WAY OT GO HMOE, 2025, film still.